NEW specially-commissioned works by selected Scottish and international artists will form the opening exhibition at Edinburgh’s new contemporary art centre on Calton Hill.

The £4.5 million Collective development includes the newly restored historic City Observatory; the nearby City Dome, also restored; a brand new exhibition and office space embedded into the hillside; a purpose-built restaurant, The Outlook; and Transit House, originally used as an observatory but now to form the centre’s education base for visiting schools and groups.

The centre will open to the public on Saturday, November 24.

The opening exhibition, Affinity and Allusion, features sculpture, installation, performance, audio work and text by six artists on themes related to the history of Calton Hill.

Formerly based on Cockburn Street, Collective – which dates back to 1984 – moved to a temporary gallery space on Calton Hill in 2013 and began fundraising to redevelop the site, which has been unused since 2009.

The City Observatory, designed by William Playfair in 1818, played a key role in the history of astronomy and timekeeping in the Capital and will have on display the original telescope installed there in 1831.

The new exhibition building, named The Hillside, will have a panoramic viewing terrace on its roof.

And there will also be stunning views from the Lookout restaurant, run by the team behind The Gardeners’ Cottage.

Kate Gray, director of Collective, said after more than five years of fundraising and hard work it was exciting to be opening for visitors at last. She said: “This is a very important and significant site and we wanted to treat it with the respect it deserves. The mixture of old and new is a complex balance to get right.

“I can’t wait to open the gate and welcome everyone in.

“We are thinking of it as a new kind of observatory – bringing together the histories of the site, but looking through that to the future as well.

“We will always be presenting new work by living artists in the context of the amazing histories which converge on the site anyway.”